“Not in real life,” said Alice. “Have you any about here?”
“A few,” answered the Cat comprehensively. “Over there, for instance,” it added, contracting its pupils to the requisite focus, “is the most perfect specimen we have.”
Alice followed the direction of its glance and noticed for the first time a figure sitting in a very uncomfortable attitude on nothing in particular. Alice had no time to wonder how it managed to do it, she was busy taking in the appearance of the creature, which was something like a badly-written note of interrogation and something like a guillemot, and seemed to have been trying to preen its rather untidy plumage with whitewash. “What a dreadful mess it’s in!” she remarked, after gazing at it for a few moments in silence. “What is it, and why is it here?”
“It hasn’t any meaning,” said the Cat, “it simply is.”
“Can it talk?” asked Alice eagerly.
“It has never done anything else,” chuckled the Cat.
“Can you tell me what you are doing here?” Alice inquired politely. The Ineptitude shook its head with a deprecatory motion and commenced to drawl, “I haven’t an idea.”
“It never has, you know,” interrupted the Cheshire Cat rudely, “but in its leisure moments” (Alice thought it must have a good many of them) “when it isn’t playing with a gutta-percha ball it unravels the groundwork of what people believe—or don’t believe, I forget which.”
THE QUEEN.